What if Trump rejects election results?

If President Donald Trump were to lose Tuesday's election and then refuse to accept the results, many of his supporters would likely follow suit, some Ohio State University professors said this week. Violating a norm for presidential candidates, Trump has repeatedly signaled that he may not accept an unfavorable election outcome. But the president is not the only one disjointed from historical norms. A study of congressional voting found that Republicans and Democrats are more polarized than at any point since the Civil War, said Nathaniel Swigger, associate professor of political science. The electorate is largely aligned with that trend, viewing people in the other party as so benighted and biased that it is pointless to listen to them or compromise, said Thomas Nelson, political science professor. The good news is that polling data finds that the general public, from both political parties, overwhelmingly does not view violence as justified if the other party wins the election, said Thomas Wood, assistant professor. Much of what would happen on the streets would depend on how Trump and other Republican leaders would react to an unfavorable outcome. If Trump loses, he will not concede defeat in "any formal way," said Paul Beck, professor emeritus of political science. No doubt he would cry foul if results show him losing. "The question is, how hard will he press it. That may depend upon the decisiveness of the outcome," Beck said. "If it's really a narrow outcome, if there are a couple of states that are still in play after the election, whose final votes are to be counted, then I can imagine him raising hell and saying, 'No I'm not going to concede. I've not lost. They're trying to steal the election.'" Trump's hard-core base would follow suit, Swigger said. "For the hard-core base, they'll follow him all the way," Swigger said. "If he signals that the election is illegitimate, then the staunchest of his supporters will absolutely accept that as gospel. "If you have somebody with a huge following who declares the process illegitimate, I think the best-case scenario is a large protest movement, and the worst-case scenario is a violent protest movement. It's just nothing good that comes of this." Nelson agreed that if Trump says the election was rigged, his hard-core followers will follow suit. "They'll sort of take their cues from the president. If the president says, 'Look, rise up. Take to the streets. Don't accept this,' things could get pretty ugly," Nelson said. But he is doubtful that Trump and his followers will go that far. Other top Republicans could tamp down a revolt against an unfavorable election result. "If Trump refuses to accept the results of the election but everybody else in the Republican Party goes, 'No, no, this is actually real,' Mike DeWine or Mitch McConnell, people like that … then I think more moderate Republicans will be more likely to accept the results of the election," Swigger said. Nelson is hopeful the Republican elite would distance themselves from Trump and intervene if the president refuses to accept an election defeat. He cited their dismissal of Trump's suggestion earlier this year that the election should be postponed. "They — especially governors, Republicans and Democrats, but also members of Congress from both parties — were like 'Wa-a-ait a minute. No-o-o. That's not what we're going to do-o-o,'" Nelson said, imitating the condescending tone a parent might take. "'We're going to hold this election and it's going to be on Election Day, just like we planned.'" Nelson continued, "I think many of the leadership of the party, although they are very loyal to the president in most instances, I think would start to cringe and they may step away from him on this one and say, 'Wait a minute, let's not get carried away here. This is how it works. You've got to take it like a man and move on. That's what we expect the other party to do when they lose, and we've got to uphold the bargain when we lose.'" Though most Republican leaders do not say so publicly, they likely get nervous when Trump talks about challenging election results, Nelson said. "I think when push comes to shove they're going to say, 'Wait a minute, you've gone too far, now,'" he said. What could happen if Biden wins the election, Nelson said, is Trump followers will turn to a passive resistance. "People will say, 'Fine, OK, we have a new president, but he's not my president. My president is still Donald Trump and I'm going to pay attention to what he says and I am not going to pay attention to what this so-called actual president says.'" Many Trump supporters already defy public health guidance to wear masks and to socially distance. They may find other ways to resist a new president. "I think it's possible that Trump will hunker down in Florida or wherever and kind of issue his own recommendations for what his hard-core, true-believer followers should be doing and it might be very different from what the Biden administration is telling people that they should do," Nelson said. Much also would depend on the response of conservative media, he said. "If the conservative media goes along with a Trump claim of the illegitimacy of the election, (if) they kind of add fuel to that fire, that's just going to make it worse," Nelson said. "I expect that social media will just explode with all kinds of theories" of how exactly the Democrats were able to rig the election. "If outlets like Fox News and Breitbart and all these kind of right-wing outlets pick up on these theories, even if they don't advocate, but if they at least sort of entertain them or give them some voice, give them some appearance of legitimacy, that will just magnify them," he said. Beck suggested people have a kind of humility and alertness in the days ahead. "Everything is possible in 2020. I think you and I probably are always surprised by what comes next," he said. "We should be open to those surprises still."